How Come We Never
by HyperCaz
Summary: Gary hasn't really thought about his relationship with Marissa before, but after a sleepless night, he decides to ask her about it.


Probably set sometime in season 3, but that's not really important.

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A weak winter sun sent grey light trickling through the windows of McGinty's, making sure that it was exactly the kind of morning that anyone would want to spend curled up in bed. The time ticked closer to 6:30am, when the radio would snap on in the apartment upstairs.

Gary Hobson was already awake. Despite pulling all the blankets up to his nose, he still couldn't get warm. He knew it had been a mistake to get up for the bathroom in the middle of the night – disturbing his established cocoon had allowed the cold air to leech away any pockets of warmth in his bed. And then just when he thought he might slip into a frostbitten coma, he started thinking. This proved a lot more distracting than the cold.

It wasn't like he didn't think about things during the day. He thought about the paper a lot. There would always be more questions than answers when it came to receiving tomorrow's newspaper today. He was used to that.

But when most respectable parts of the Windy City were sleeping, and the traffic noise a little less pervasive, thoughts that he'd never have in broad daylight announced themselves. Then the questions would start – questions so frustrating and unusual that his stomach would keep churning in on itself until he could ask them out loud.

Gary shifted over onto his side to look at the clock. 6:27.

"Oh come on..."

Pulling at the blankets, he winced as one of his bare feet was exposed. Well that did it. Gary hit the off button on his alarm and let himself tumble out of bed.

He jumped up immediately. "Ah, ah, cold!"

Rarely did he need to wear socks, but this was just one of those mornings when there was an actual chance of his toes turning black. Gary ripped a pair of socks out of a drawer and stuffed his feet into them. He sat down on the edge of his bed and sighed long and slow.

6:29.

Flexing his toes, and grimacing as the thaw made them hurt, Gary turned his attention on his white hands. He blew on them, using more and more breath until he winded himself. That did nothing useful. Great.

A cat meowed. A muffled thud followed.

Gary barrelled over to the door and yanked it open. Ignoring the cat, who swiped at his socks, he rolled up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. The paper could wait this morning.

He started jogging down the stairs, then slowed as he remembered that it was still early. There was a distinct lack of any customers burring away below. Gary made himself walk slowly through the kitchen until he reached the bar. He blinked away the glare from the overcast sky pulsing through the glass, somehow as potent as full sunlight.

Then he saw her at the bar.

"Marissa! What are you doing here?"

"It's stocktake today," she reminded him, turning to aim her smile in his direction. "I thought I'd get started early."

Gary narrowed his eyes. So she just happened to come in early, when he just happened to have a question...and did she really have to look so awake? No dark circles under her eyes, clothes pressed straight and not even a cup of coffee in sight. He slumped onto the stool next to her and smoothed the _Sun-Times _out on the bar. Gary stared down at the front page, blinked a few times and gave up. It was like he suddenly couldn't read English.

"Something on your mind?" Marissa asked after he had been silent for a minute.

_Yes, yes there is something my mind. You've been on my mind, only since about three o'clock this morning._

Gary cleared his throat. Something caught on the back of his tonsils and he had to try that again. Clenching some of the newspaper into a fist, he managed, "How come you and I never..."

He stopped, gesturing vaguely. Marissa shook her head slightly and leaned forward in that way that always made Gary think that she was trying to see him. She prompted, "How come we never what?"

"Never..." Gary glanced around the empty tables of the bar. He lowered his voice anyway. "...you know, got together."

"Don't mind me asking, but what's brought this on?"

A gulp. Gary busied himself with flattening out the part of the paper that he'd scrunched up. He spoke to the bar instead of facing her. "I've been trying to figure out if I love you in the way I love Chuck, or in a – in a different way."

"Ah. I see. Can I get you a drink?"

Gary swivelled abruptly to frown at her. "What, do I sound like I'm having a nervous breakdown here?"

"Honestly, Gary," she said, reaching over to smooth the pages for him, "I haven't given that much thought to it. I mean, I did at first, but not for a couple of years at least."

Tapping his fingers over the bar, Gary slouched further into his stool. She leaned over further and rested her hand over his, trapping his twitching fingers. Mumbling distantly at first, Gary said, "You were the first...the second person I told about the paper. As a matter of fact, you probably should have been the first."

Marissa nodded. "I remember. You took me out to lunch, except as I recall you left me alone in the cafeteria while you were testing out your new toy."

"New toy," he muttered. "Look, it wasn't like that! And-and I gave you the money for Spike, huh, remember that?"

Her expression remained the same, for the most part. Except that a slight smile was turning her lips. "Gary. Are we going to get to the issue or are you going to leave me hanging again?"

"Well it's just...you listened," he explained a little awkwardly. "You sat and and you listened when I told you about the paper. You're good at listening. I guess I...I feel I can tell you anything. I care about you a lot, Marissa."

She squeezed his hand. "I care about you too. Probably more than you deserve."

"Oh ha-hah," Gary grumbled.

"But I think you've brought up a good point there," Marissa told him. "I'm here for you, and you're here for me. Whenever you've had problems with love or money, I didn't mind helping you out because of that. I will always do it for you. No matter what. And I'm pretty sure you'd do it for me."

Gary straightened quickly. "Of course I would, Marissa, you know that!"

"I know. You're very important to me. If we got involved, and we had problems, who would you go to for help?"

"Well, I'd..." He fiddled with a chip in the wood with his free hand. "I'd find someone."

Shaking her head, Marissa touched his elbow gently. "I am that someone, Gary. I care about you too much for that to change."

"Oh. That...that makes sense. I guess."

"You guess," she teased lightly.

Gary thought a few choice words, but didn't dare utter them under his breath. He skimmed the immediate area, now really needing a cup of coffee. Or something stronger. Slipping his hand from Marissa's, he offered, "You, uh, want to have lunch today?"

"Haven't you got somewhere to be?"

Reluctantly turning his attention to the paper, Gary found that the headline was now readable and saying something dire about a gas heater explosion in a nursery. "Yes, actually, but – "

"Bye, Gary," she said pointedly.

Glancing down at his pyjamas, Gary sighed and eased himself off the stool. He had time, but not heaps of it. Maybe he'd just throw on some layers over the top. He hesitated, then realised he was relieved. Apart from somehow being a lot warmer than he was a few minutes before, his brain didn't feel so knotted.

Smiling, Gary ducked over and kissed his friend on the cheek. "I love you, Marissa."

"Love you too," Marissa replied, lifting her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. "Now shoo!"

Gary bolted up the stairs to his apartment and threw on whatever extra clothes he could find. He stopped to look out the window. Blindingly sunny with all clouds mysteriously chased off.

"Figures," Gary said.

Two minutes later, he left McGinty's with his newspaper under one arm. Any thoughts left over from his late night bathroom break promptly evaporated in the sunshine.

Gary looked up the street for a taxi and found none. He muttered, stalled a moment, then ran off down the footpath.

* * *

AN: So ends my first _Early Edition _fic. I do like the thought of them together, but for some reason when they started talking in the back of my brain, it went that way instead. o_O


End file.
